Hapsburgs

Cultural  

1. Austrian-based dynasty that ruled much of central and parts of western Europe from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries. The family's head long held the title of Holy Roman Emperor (see Holy Roman Empire). By 1914 the Hapsburg-ruled Austro-Hungarian Empire included all or part of territories that later became independent nations, such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The empire collapsed during World War I.

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Nationalism threatened to disrupt the Hapsburg Empire in the nineteenth century; the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo (see also Sarajevo) in 1914 triggered World War I.

Example Sentences

From the defeat of the Spanish Armada to the disastrous Battle of Rocroi, Hapsburgs absorbed loss after loss, while Protestant northern Europe extended itself across the world.

From Slate • Apr. 21, 2023

Lvov, now Lviv in Ukraine, was a city fought over and conquered by Hapsburgs, Poles, Ukrainians and Russians.

From Washington Post • Sep. 17, 2021

His mother, he recalled, filled him with stories of the glories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburgs, an upbringing he credited for his generally conservative outlook.

From New York Times • Jun. 29, 2017

The careers of top riders can last decades, so the best horses and the richest benefactors have a way of gravitating to them, concentrating the glory of dressage like the blood of the Hapsburgs.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 1, 2016

Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker